Zen’s investment comprises a subscription to Cogknit’s primary funding round and the acquisition of existing shares. Investor Ashish Kacholia and his associates will also invest in the primary round. On completion of the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, Cogknit will become a subsidiary of Zen, and its founding team will continue to lead the company.
Recent conflicts, from Ukraine to West Asia, have shown that battles are decided less by the number of tanks and guns than by how quickly every unit can see the battlefield, share what it sees and act on it. Battlefield Management Systems, which give every fighting unit a common picture of friendly forces, the enemy and the plan, are central to
the modernisation of armoured forces worldwide.
Cogknit’s BMS digitally connects tanks, vehicles and soldiers, so that every commander works from one real-time picture of the battlefield. It has completed field trials with the Indian Army, and is designed and developed in India, adding to the country’s indigenous defence technology base and to the self-reliance of the Armed Forces.
For Zen, the acquisition is aligned with Samvid, its proposed AI platform for shared battlefield awareness. Cogknit’s BMS adds the command-and-control layer that connects tanks, vehicles and soldiers, and is intended to complement Samvid, as well as Zen’s training simulators, counter-drone systems, drones and autonomous platforms.
Ashok Atluri, Chairman and Managing Director, Zen Technologies Limited, said: “Future wars will be won by the army that sees first, decides fastest and acts together.
Cogknit offers the Indian Army a way to do exactly that, with technology built in India and tested in trials with the Army. We are proud to back the team that has built it.
Cogknit’s journey from selection in the iDEX challenge to field trials took nearly five years because the system was developed hand in hand with the end user, with the Army’s feedback shaping every stage. That depth of engagement is hard to replicate, and the learnings will help us accelerate future R&D across the Zen group. With Zen’s scale and experience, and our approach of backing strong leadership teams, we aim to make Cogknit the indigenous standard for battlefield management, from the tank to the soldier, and to strengthen the Indian Army for the wars of the future.”
Anuroop Iyengar, Founder and CEO, Cogknit Semantics Private Limited, said: “Since 2014, Cogknit has been part of the new wave of Indian startups innovating for defence. That innovation now gets a much-needed boost through ‘courage’ capital from Zen and its ecosystem. We are well positioned to equip the Indian soldier with a force multiplier that few armies in the world have today We started with large-scale data processing for Signals and Edge AI for Infantry, and then built a next-generation Command and Control System through iDEX, which has completed field trials with the Army. We are confident we have built the foundation on which Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as AI, robotics and dronery can be incorporated, to realise the Battlefield Management System of the AI age.
